Leveraging Influencer Marketing for your Brand

In the era of online brand marketing, to be successful, your brand should have a clear connection between authenticity, reality and relatability. The biggest mistake brands make while approaching the online market is trying the same old traditional strategies without understanding the fact that today, consumers are smart enough not to respond to a hard pitch. The old tried-and-true methods are great for marketing campaign via mediums like television, print and radio. However, today the consumer looks for viral content, which they can relate to authentically.

With the increasing trend of marketing online, consumers now see their online experiences through blogs and other social platforms more personal and direct than any other form of communication.

Why should you go for Influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is the spin around the term for one of the oldest and most effective types of advertising: “The Word-Of-Mouth”. Although word-of-mouth is one of the most powerful strategies of marketing for brands, it is also the most misunderstood approach.

Consumers hate being bombarded with intrusive advertisements and third-party recommendations are a better way of building a positive brand image. To be creative is your key to success as a marketer for grabbing consumers attention.

According to asurvey,influencers have maintained a key role in the sector of digital marketing throughout the year 2016. In 2017, this number is said to be increasing even more with the collaboration of influencers and big brands. As per Linqia, 48% of the online marketers are planning to increase their budgets for influencer marketing in 2017. On the other hand,Bloombergpredicts a $255 expenditure on influencer marketing every month in 2017 on Instagram. With the increasing demand for influencer marketing, Influencers will soon become the most valuable element for brands to stay ahead of the competition.

One of the top influencer platform,Muse Find, says that 92% of the consumers today trust on an influencer more than any celebrity endorsement or brand advertisement. These statistics prove that if done in the right way, influencer marketing can be the greatest opportunity to enhance brand engagement and get sales.

How to choose an influencer for your brand publicity?

Influencer marketing can only work for you if you want the right kind of influencer for your brand. Selection of good influencer is the key element in successful influencer marketing, which often gets overlooked. Choosing an influencer with a high number of followers can look tempting, but remember the niche of your influencer should match your brand. The influencer you select should be equally relevant to your brand. Look for an influencer who has the right target audience and right personality for your brand, rather than selecting someone with high traffic.See how their social media personality matches your brand image and then get aligned.

Why would an influencer partner with your Brand?

Influencers who can prove beneficial for your brand are high in demand. Therefore, influencers also have an option to choose which brand they want to promote or partner with. Your influencer would also want to know how valuable your brand will be for their followers, successful for their social media presence and rewarding for themselves. Here are some of the highlights an influencer is looking for to work with a brand:

#1 Zero domination

You are choosing an influencer because they know the best way to communicate to their followers or audiences. The biggest mistake online marketer make is dictating influence over what to say and what not to say to their audience. If you allow your brand influencers to engage with their followers authentically, it will be more beneficial.

#2 Monetize their followings while staying true

Your brand influencer has a reputation online that they built with patience and hard work. They would never want to look like a “Seller” to their audience. They do understand that their hard work is quite valuable for a brand trying to build their space online, but they are looking for a partnership that allows them to make money by doing what they love to do without compromising their integrity.

#3 Brands with clear goals

To create valuable, unique and quality content, your brand Influencer should know what you want to achieve through their content. Your campaign should have defined targets and methods to measure the success rate in achieving the goals. Remember your Influencer is working as a representor of your brand. Hence, you should make sure the Influencer knows everything about your goals.

Understand where to start and how to move forward.

The biggest mistake that stops brands from leveraging Influencer Marketing is they have no planning where to start and how to go forward. By following the right steps and utilising the right tools, you can build an effective Influencer marketing campaign.

#1 Setting your Goals

The first and the most crucial step that will determine your campaign’s content strategy are raising brand awareness, increasing sales, getting more followers, driving earned media, building great relationships with Influencers, capturing email addresses and improving search engine rankings. If your goals are clear, you can easily set your budget and start your marketing campaign.

#2 Finding the right Influencer

While selecting your brand Influencer, make sure the person has a positive impact on your target audience. Reach is another key element to team up with any Influencer. Check how many channels they are active on and how large is their following.

#3 Setup your Influencer campaign

The four core elements you need to follow while creating an influential campaign are content creation, content placement, video creation and social posting. The Influencer will do these tasks for you to give you a successful Influencer marketing campaign.

#4 Maintain content authenticity

For any successful Influencer Marketing campaign, content is the key element. Here, by content, we mean everything that comes in the range of blog posts to videos and social shout outs to product reviews. Allow your Influencer to develop the content on your behalf but before they post anything online make sure the content is authentic, and there is no plagiarism.

#5 Approval and measuring results

It is important for the Influencer to maintain their creative license and share honest opinions. Allow your Influencers to use their creativity but keep the authority to provide specification and approve the final content with you. It is also important to measure the campaign success once it is completed. Based on your defined program goals, use the following metrics to conclude:

Impressions

Retweet

Likes

Comments

Clicks

Shares

Pins and Re-pins

There is no doubt that Influencer Marketing is a great strategy for brand building, but it is not something that suits every business type. The best way to understand whether this kind of campaign will be suitable for your business or not, create a small yet measurable campaign and test the waters. If you get a passionate target audience, you can use the power of Influencer marketing to grow your business.